Introduction to the Compleat Angler
Introduction to the Compleat Angler

Author: Andrew Lang

Publisher: Library of Alexandria

Published: 2020-09-28

Total Pages: 46

ISBN-13: 1465600914

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The few events in the long life of Izaak Walton have been carefully investigated by Sir Harris Nicolas. All that can be extricated from documents by the alchemy of research has been selected, and I am unaware of any important acquisitions since Sir Harris NicolasÕs second edition of 1860. Izaak was of an old family of Staffordshire yeomen, probably descendants of George Walton of Yoxhall, who died in 1571. IzaakÕs father was Jarvis Walton, who died in February 1595-6; of IzaakÕs mother nothing is known. Izaak himself was born at Stafford, on August 9, 1593, and was baptized on September 21. He died on December 15, 1683, having lived in the reigns of Elizabeth, James I., Charles I., under the Commonwealth, and under Charles II. The anxious and changeful age through which he passed is in contrast with his very pacific character and tranquil pursuits. Of WaltonÕs education nothing is known, except on the evidence of his writings. He may have read Latin, but most of the books he cites had English translations. Did he learn his religion from Ôhis mother or his nurseÕ? It will be seen that the free speculation of his age left him untouched: perhaps his piety was awakened, from childhood, under the instruction of a pious mother. Had he been orphaned of both parents (as has been suggested) he might have been less amenable to authority, and a less notable example of the virtues which Anglicanism so vainly opposed to Puritanismism. His literary beginnings are obscure.

Environment, Society, and The Compleat Angler
Environment, Society, and The Compleat Angler

Author: Marjorie Swann

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2023-08-31

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 0271096586

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First published in 1653, The Compleat Angler is one of the most influential environmental texts ever written. Addressing a politically and religiously polarized nation devastated by warfare, disease, ecological degradation, and climate change, Izaak Walton’s famous fishing treatise stages a radical thought experiment: how might humanity’s enhanced relationship with the natural world generate a new kind of sustaining—and sustainable—social order beyond the traditional boundaries of the church, the state, and the biological family? Challenging the current scholarly consensus that reads Walton’s how-to manual as a conservative polemic camouflaged by fishlore, Marjorie Swann examines this richly complicated portrayal of the natural world through an ecocritical lens and explores other neglected aspects of Walton’s writings, including his depictions of social hierarchy, gender, and sexuality. In the process, Swann analyzes a host of noncanonical environmental texts and provides a groundbreaking reappraisal of Charles Cotton’s “Part II” of The Compleat Angler. This study extends the hydrological turn in early modern ecocriticism and demonstrates how, as a genre, angling manuals provide new insights into the environmental, cultural, social, and literary history of early modern England. Taking its place alongside landmark works of ecocriticism such as Green Shakespeare and Milton and Ecology, this fresh and timely reassessment of The Compleat Angler rightly ranks Izaak Walton among the most important environmental writers of the early modern era.